


Still Sounds Like a Song

by Writcraft



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Romance, Threesome - M/M/M, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 04:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6315541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writcraft/pseuds/Writcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been a quarter of a century since the last time, but they remember as if it was yesterday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Sounds Like a Song

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the HP Goldenage Salt & Pepper Fest (where the main characters must be over 50 years of age in the story). The title is from Adele's 'When We Were Young'

Draco can’t quite work out why he decided to forgo a perfectly fine evening with a good book and an expensive cognac to put on his finest Italian suit and attend Potter’s last hurrah.

The stupid thing is, Draco doesn’t even _like_ Harry Potter. 

Not anymore.

Potter’s aged badly, with tufts of grey in his already ridiculous hair that he doesn’t even bother to charm black to give the illusion of eternal youth. The least Witches Weekly’s _Most Influential Bachelor_ could do is a basic spell to make himself look less…careworn. His eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles and Draco’s willing to bet the Malfoy fine wine collection that Potter’s bottle green Muggle jumper isn’t even designer. Don’t get him started on the fact Potter’s wearing a jumper and jeans to a Ministry bash. Heathen.

Potter catches Draco’s eye and has the nerve to grimace as if he’s tasted something unpalatable. Draco’s tempted to give Potter the finger, but that might imply he cares about the way Potter looks at him. Instead he meets Potter’s gaze head on and tips his chin. He smirks, as if he knows something Potter doesn’t and he can almost taste treacle tart and the air of the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts. Baiting Potter never gets old, even when they’ve both lived for over half a century and probably should know better.

Potter’s brow furrows and his eyes narrow. His jaw tightens and his lips press into a line. His eyes flash with something undecipherable – something dark and expressive which sends a shiver through the length of Draco’s body. He tells himself it’s simply a cold room and nothing to do with the way Potter looks so serious and determined, as if he’s going to launch into one of his holier than thou speeches.

Draco pats his hand to his mouth to indicate how bored he is, caught in Potter’s fierce stare. He’s still feigning a yawn when Potter approaches, leaning casually against the wall and invading Draco’s space. Draco drops his hand and their fingers brush at the tips before Draco yanks his hand away and stuffs it in his pocket. Even the lightest touch from Potter leaves Draco’s skin burning.

Draco’s used to it by now. Perhaps it’s always going to be that way, until he’s dust and ashes.

“Evening.” Potter nudges Draco and their fingers brush again, largely because Draco allows it. The sensation is less painful now, more a slow warmth spreading through Draco’s veins.

“Evening.” Draco steadies his voice and lets his thumb slide against Potter’s hand. “ _So_ glad I made the effort to get dressed up for this.” Draco shakes back the rush of memories Potter’s presence always brings to the surface. He laces his words with as much disdain as he can muster. “Are they really serving sausage rolls?”

Potter’s fingers slide between Draco’s and he edges a little closer. “I didn’t want them to make a fuss. I’m leaving the Ministry to try new things, I’m not dying.”

“If this was a funeral it would probably be more fun.” Draco uses the hand Potter isn’t currently exploring with a light press of his fingers to grab a drink from the tray being paraded round by a twenty-something twink of a waiter. “Did you hand pick the staff? They’re far more appealing than the cuisine.”

Potter snorts and doesn’t dignify that with a response. He moves his hand from Draco’s and takes a drink of his own.

“Harry Potter, isn’t it?” The waiter looks as if he’d like to get on his knees and give Potter an enthusiastic blow job. 

“Yeah. Thanks. For the wine, I mean.” 

Draco rolls his eyes. He can practically hear Potter’s blush. How Potter’s got to the age he is without being able to handle a bit of flirting, Draco will never know. Potter’s face has always given him away. It was one of their biggest problems, in the end. Harry wasn’t able to lie and Draco was far too good at it.

_Are we broken?_

Draco swallows back a wave of nausea and too many lost, lonely years. He takes a steadying breath in time to notice the waiter still hovering in Harry’s vicinity, making small-talk about how _brilliant_ the party is like he’s never seen a sausage roll before. 

Finally, the waiter has the nerve to wink at Potter and he leans forward, muttering something about _a break in ten minutes_ before leaving with a broad smile. He’s young. Young enough to look slim and hard in all the right places, his backside accentuated by tight black cotton trousers. He looks like a model and it makes Draco’s gut twist. 

“Looks like it’s your lucky night,” Draco murmurs. He takes a steadying gulp of his drink. Warm Sauvignon. He really should have stayed at home.

“You could say that.” Potter shifts until their arms slide together against the wall, their shoulders pressed close. “You look good, Malfoy. It’s been a long time.”

“Don’t tell me I look good when you’ve got a twenty year old blond offering to suck your prick.” Draco takes another gulp of his wine. He remembers a time when he looked better than any of the waiters giving Potter the once over. He remembers a time when he wouldn’t have let the waiter get within ten feet of Potter, let alone proposition him with Draco right there. He remembers a time when someone not unlike the waiter trailed his lips down Harry’s chest, while Draco watched him travel down, down, down.

“He’s just young.” Potter’s voice is tight, as if every twenty-something wizard with an interest in men looks for blowjobs before kisses. Potter was never that twenty year old. Draco should have known, should have been more careful with him. He knows that now.

“We were young once.” The nights in underground Vauxhall clubs come back in a rush. He can smell the smoke in the air and hear the whispers and laughter. He can see Harry watching him as he danced to the beat with some hot young thing. “Weren’t we, darling?” Draco’s voice is almost a whisper. He doesn’t call everyone darling. It’s a private joke, of sorts. It says _I remember_. It asks _do you_?

“Yeah.” Potter lets out a breath, and the silence is almost unbearable.

Draco fills it with insults, because he doesn’t know how to say anything else to Potter these days. “You look like you let Weasley dress you in his father’s old cast offs. Are you sure you’re not straight?”

“Quite sure.” Potter’s voice contains the hint of a smile. “But I’m still not looking for a twenty year old blond to suck my prick.”

Now it’s Draco’s turn to snort. Potter really should just be honest for once. He has a very definite type if even one quarter of the articles printed about him are true.

“Besides,” Potter continues. “Didn’t you always tell me things get better with age? Like wine?”

Draco’s breath catches and he refuses to look at Potter, changing the subject swiftly. It wouldn’t do to linger too long on what _that_ might mean. “Why did you even let them have a party if you can’t be bothered to make it a good one?”

Potter’s shoulder lifts and falls. “It seemed like the right thing to do. Why are you here?”

“I was bored and I was told there’d be free booze.” Draco turns to Potter. “Although I should have remembered you can’t be relied upon to choose a decent wine.”

Potter studies Draco and then looks away. His cheeks are pink and flushed, his lips damp as he runs his tongue over them. It shouldn’t be so distracting, but it is. It always was. Up close the lines by Potter’s eyes don’t look so bad. They give his face character, as if he’s laughed a thousand times over the years. It makes Draco inexplicably jealous. 

“It’s not that bad.” Potter sounds confident enough. “I said I didn’t want anything grand. Besides, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.”

“Everyone but me,” Draco clarifies. “And that’s only because they’re your friends and Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs are far too polite to tell a friend his party’s rubbish.”

“Of course.” Potter huffs with laughter but Draco knows him well enough to sense he’s scanning the room, no doubt hoping the ridiculous dance moves Weasley’s currently trying to pull off are the sign of a good night. Perhaps they are. Perhaps that’s all Potter wants from a party. A comfortable jumper, warm, cheap wine and some horrible dancing to songs that make everybody feel young again. They don’t work that way for Draco. They only serve to remind him how old he is these days.

“Weasley’s a liability. Warn me if you’re going to let him snog Granger in front of me. I’d rather not have to Obliviate myself.”

“Tricky, that.” Potter pushes off the wall and he stands opposite Draco, his eyes shining. “Better?”

Draco swallows, because it’s better, yes and so, so much worse. He can’t see Weasley anymore but now Potter’s close enough that his breath ghosts over Draco’s lips. He’s close enough that Draco can see every line on his skin, every curve and twitch of his lips. He’s close enough that Draco knows he still wears the same cologne and looks as good in green as ever. 

Draco looks into Harry’s eyes which haven’t aged a day. They’re still full of fire and look like the way grass smells just after rain. 

Draco has to remember how to breathe.

In, out. Not so difficult. Take that, Potter. Take that, _Harry_. 

Draco keeps his expression smooth and tries not to remember. He really needs to stop looking at Potter’s eyes. Heat travels up his neck and warms his cheeks. His hand grips his glass so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter in his fist.

“I said,” Potter reminds Draco he’s waiting for an answer. “Is it better?”

“No, it’s not _better_.” Draco’s voice leaves him in a husky growl and he pushes Potter back. Or at least that’s the plan. Instead he finds his traitorous fingers sliding over the wool of Potter’s jumper. It looks like a badly knitted Weasley classic but feels like Cashmere. Only Potter. 

“Isn’t it?” Potter catches Draco’s hand and he tips his head to the side, owlish as he watches Draco through his glasses. 

“The press are going to see. Christ, Potter. You’re not even subtle.”

“I couldn’t give a fuck. Could you?”

It sounds like a challenge and Draco shakes his head, words momentarily lost as Potter’s eyes flare.

“You’re still a bloody idiot.”

“Yeah.” Potter’s voice softens and there’s something desperate in his tone – something past. “Perhaps. Still an idiot that wants to kiss you silly, though. I’ve always been daft about you, Malfoy. If you hadn’t come tonight I’d have found you tomorrow.”

And that. That’s unexpected. Trust Potter to choose a Ministry party to declare his undying love when he’s had quarter of a century to mend their broken hearts.

“You’ve got a twenty year old-”

“I couldn’t give a _fuck_ ,” Potter repeats. He growls it out and he breathes out a sigh which sounds ragged and lost. “I don’t care. Not about any of it. I don’t want a shag with someone I’ve only just met. Never have. You know that better than anyone.”

_Then_

Three of them. Kissing. Potter’s wary look when Draco flaunts his body and admires every sharp angle. The new boy even likes the scars. Says they’re hot. He thinks the Dark Mark is a cool tattoo Draco got from a pub in Hackney. Draco’s never been to Hackney in his life.

Potter’s pleading with his Draco, his eyes saying _don’t fuck us up_ and _it’s not too late to stop it._

_Come on_ , Draco says – caught up in the boy palming his cock and reaching for Harry’s zip. _I’ve been saying we need to see other people. What better way than this? Let’s see other people together._

_Now_

“I never wanted him,” Draco says, because it’s the truth. It’s only taken him twenty-five years to tell it. “I never wanted anyone else. It was all bullshit.”

He was a half-drunk, adorable Muggle fresh out of University and new to London. 

Draco can’t even remember his name.

The night’s just a blur of watching somebody else with their mouth around Harry’s cock until Draco’s jealous rage burned fiercely enough to make his heart burst into flames. 

“I know,” Potter says. Draco wonders how long Potter’s known for and why he’s never said as much before. 

_Then_

There’s silence in the room afterwards, when it’s just the two of them breathing hard and staring at the ceiling.

_Is it broken?_

Harry winces and closes his eyes. His fingers trail along the hair on his chest, towards the spot where his heart beat is the strongest. 

_Course not._ Harry musters up a grin and yawns. _Sleep?_

A chill settles in the air and Draco can’t trust himself to speak. Harry’s fingers press against his own chest again as though he needs to check if he’s got through it all with his heart intact.

Draco already knows he hasn’t.

He catches Harry’s hand and clutches onto it tightly, until they both pretend to be asleep for long enough that the sun comes up and the daylight changes everything.

_Now_

“Do you think it was always broken?” 

The pause lasts too long before Potter shakes his head. “I don’t think it ever was. I just think maybe we had to fix ourselves first.” He strokes his fingers over Draco’s cheek, and Draco’s not sure how to say he doesn’t know if he has. How do you tell someone you’re scared to death to let them love you, in case they discover that under the surface you’re just bruises and fractured bones? 

“Now we’re all shiny and new.” Draco tries not to sound too bitter but he doesn’t quite manage it. Potter’s eyebrow arches and he’s studying Draco so closely it’s difficult to speak in proper sentences. Draco tugs Potter closer and breathes him in. It’s been a long time since his lungs haven’t hurt whenever Potter’s nearby. But then, Potter hasn’t been this close for a very long time.

Potter slides his hands onto Draco’s waist and keeps him steady, like it’s just after the war and they both need somebody to help them stand. “Is it rude to leave your own party early?”

“Not if it’s as shit as this,” Draco says. The tension dissipates and Harry’s wheezing with laughter and just for a moment everything feels normal again, in a way it hasn’t for years. “Besides, you’re not dying. You’ll live another day to drink terrible wine with them all.” Not to mention if Draco doesn’t get Potter somewhere private in the next ten minutes his heart might beat all the way out of his chest.

Potter stares at Draco. “I don’t know where to start.”

Draco’s body heats and he pushes against Potter. He doesn’t feel as hard and empty anymore and he wonders if there’s a way of filling the hole in his heart where happiness used to reside.

“At the beginning?”

They Apparate and it tugs painfully at Draco’s belly, while he clutches onto Potter for dear life. 

_Then_

It hits Draco like a Bludger during that first hungry, desperate kiss when Harry presses against him and the skies burst open to shower them both with fat raindrops. 

There’s a drunk wizard hollering something in the street that neither of them hears. There’s laughter and the sound of glass breaking on the pavement. Then there’s just silence, rain splashing into the puddles and the rough, angry breaths that fills the narrow space where they push together.

Somewhere between the moment when Harry murmurs his name and tugs Draco closer, it all falls into place. Draco’s stupidly, madly in love with Harry fucking Potter. 

Rich twenty-something rising stars at Gringotts don’t just come out of the closet for a shaggy mop of hair and a blinding smile. Pureblood wizards have nice, civilised marriages to witches of good standing. They don’t piss around in dark alleys with scruffy war heroes. They just _don’t_. Even if said war hero can snog better than any witch Draco’s ever had the misfortune of kissing. 

Draco shivers and pretends it’s got nothing to do with Harry at all. Harry breathes into his ear. It’s damp, warm and it sounds like _please_.

“Please what, darling?” Draco’s a prick when he wants to be. He bites out the _darling_ like an insult, with a languid drawl and a stroke of his fingers along Harry’s spine. Draco thinks it makes him sound like he knows what he’s doing. In truth, he doesn’t have a clue. Not that he’s going to let Potter know that. Never in a million years.

“Don’t be a dick,” Harry says on the back of a laugh. “Darling? Christ, Malfoy. I suppose it’s better than Scarhead.”

Harry knows, doesn’t he? Harry’s always known how to peel back the layers when Draco spits out words and insults. He’s always able to read between the lines. He probably knows Draco’s had nothing but his own hand wrapped around his cock and that every post-kiss insult leaves Draco’s lips with a tremor of nerves.

“Shut up and kiss me,” Draco says. He means to tell Harry to fuck off or something equally cutting, but at least he sounds in control of the situation.

“Yeah. Think I will, if it’s all the same to you.” Harry’s bloody gorgeous when he’s all lip-bitten and dark pupils, blown wide with desire. The shadows make them both reckless and any insult Draco planned to throw at Harry is lost forever in another clash of lips together and hands grasping at one another as if they both need something just to keep themselves tethered in place. 

Draco can’t even remember how the kiss started. There was an argument about jam and something to do with Harry’s stupid glasses. He vaguely recalls making a very clever point about the correct way to brew Wolfsbane when his point got completely swallowed up in a messy kiss and Potter murmuring against Draco’s cheek something like _please shut the fuck up, Malfoy_.

No, Draco can’t remember how the kiss started.

He just knows he doesn’t want it to end.

“Do you think we could do this forever?” Potter says, breathless and damp from the rain. Draco’s not even sure if he’s joking. 

“Forever’s a long time.”

Potter laughs and adjusts his glasses. “Not long enough.”

The first time Draco kisses Harry Potter he ends up on his knees on damp, moss-covered cobbles. He pretends he knows what he’s doing and refuses to say it’s his first, his only. He lets Harry wank him off in the middle of a thunderstorm and it’s strangely cathartic. 

The last time Draco kisses Harry Potter he tastes of salt, bitter red wine and somebody else’s lips.

_Now_

Harry’s kisses are different and the same. They taste of other experiences but they bring Draco crashing back into the too quiet room twenty-five years ago and Harry pulling on his jeans with shaking hands.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. Shouldn’t have left it so long. Too long. God, Malfoy. It’s always been you.”

Harry mouths down the line of Draco’s throat. He pulls at the skin with gentle nips of his teeth and sucks as if he wants to mark Draco all over. He’s always been reckless and territorial. But then, so has Draco. He should have known better than to bring somebody else into their bed. He should have realised it would shatter his heart into smithereens.

“ _Harry_.”

“Darling.” Harry chokes it out with a laugh, his lips damp with salty tears as he dives in for another kiss. The word sounds strange from Harry’s lips and, at the same time, nothing sounds more perfect in that one moment. Harry’s hands slide into Draco’s hair and there’s the familiar tug closer. They kiss like they’re still in the middle of a thunderstorm and as if it’s the first time for them both. In some ways, perhaps they are. Perhaps it is.

“Didn’t want you to see.” Draco’s words stumble from his lips in between ragged breaths and urgent kisses. “Didn’t think you’d like it, if you knew.”

Harry sighs and his hands hold Draco upright, his voice a low, confident murmur. “I didn’t know then. I was hiding them too, you know. Not all of my scars were on the outside.”

“Nor mine.” Draco’s voice sounds like somebody else’s, young and uncertain. “They don’t heal, you know. They don’t disappear.”

Harry pauses. He pulls back and he forces Draco to meet his gaze. It’s open, honest and fond. It nearly breaks Draco’s heart.

“No, they don’t. But maybe we could…handle them differently?”

Draco answers with a kiss, fierce and biting. If Harry thinks there’s going to be a hint of another person between them, he’s mad. 

There’s so much to say. So many new lines on Harry’s face Draco has to explore. So many _could haves _and _might haves_ and a _wish I’d let you love me_ which lingers unspoken between them.__

__“I love you. Always have, you stupid bloody idiot.” Harry’s voice in Draco’s ear takes Draco’s breath away. It’s like no time has passed between them, even though those parts of them have gone forever. If Draco strains hard enough he can almost hear the thunder claps in the distance. He can see his younger self reflected in Harry’s glasses. He can taste rain and chocolate on Harry’s lips._ _

__“Me too,” Draco says. “Always have. Never stopped.”_ _

__Draco loses himself in another scorching kiss and remembers Harry’s first _I love you_._ _

__It still sounds like a song._ _

___~Fin~_ _ _


End file.
